Conservatives have always known how to solve our country’s traffic problem, and it’s surprisingly simple.

The problem is too many cars (the U.S. has more licensed automobiles than licensed drivers) rolling down too few miles of well-paved roads. That’s mostly because private industry makes cars, and they’re good. Fun. Exciting. Useful. Meanwhile, governments build the roads. And they’re inadequate and poorly maintained. No surprises there.

So the solution would be a two-parter. First, privatize the roads, allowing for-profit companies to own, build and maintain them. Just think what happens at a supermarket when too many customers are waiting to check out: The store (privately owned and seeking maximum profits) opens more check-out lanes. Elsewise, potential customers might drop their goods and leave the store.

The same thing would happen on privately owned roads. Companies would build over-capacity into every road, so that at peak times there would be enough lanes. They’d be charging people to drive on the roads, of course, but people would be willing to pay because traffic would move so much more smoothly.

Ah, but the second part of the solution is even more ingenious. Why not have governments build the cars?

A car built by government fiat would have all the innovativeness of anything designed by a bureaucracy. That is to say: none. Lawmakers would insist products made in their districts be included on every car, so government-autos (let’s call them G-mobiles) would be weighted down with a lot of silly gadgets nobody wants anyway.

G-mobiles would be light (to save on fuel) and uncomfortable (no need to focus on comfort when you’re the only game in town). They’d be poorly made, and would break down frequently. And that’s a net plus, of course; since they’d generally be in the shop, these cars would be clogging up the roads, and there’d be plenty of highway space for the few cars that were running at any given moment.

Traffic problem solved. Continued...